How to print jq output sequentially

Question

When using jq to process JSON, I often lose the overview due to long JSON objects. Thus, something like jq . | less would be nice. However, although the above works, the nice coloring by jq is gone.

Is there another way to read jq's output line by line, or window by window, without having the terminal spammed with the full JSON object?

Edit: This did not work for me: echo '{"hello": "world"}' | jq . | less -C

score 32 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 17 '22 at 19:26

32

Use the jq -C (colorize) option before paginating it with a pager like more -r or less -r.

edited Dec 17 '22 at 19:26

xeruf

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answered Jan 17 '16 at 17:25

peak

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That does not work, unfortunately ... try: `echo '{"hello": "world"}' | jq . | less -C` – Xiphias Jan 18 '16 at 10:23
`-C` is an option on `jq`, not on `less`. – Richard Smith Apr 08 '20 at 20:29
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jeeez, write a usable example the next time; not a rebus... – Stephan Henningsen Jul 24 '20 at 00:51

score 16 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 12 '17 at 00:35

report.json is a file with JSON (cat report.json prints but not formatted)

cat report.json | jq . -C | more

Outputs jq with pager and color

or via less instead of more

cat report.json | jq . -C | less -r

P.S: the comments in this question where also helpful so thanks for that

How to print jq output sequentially

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